Kenley Jansen on his fellow 400-save club member Craig Kimbrel: ‘I want to see both of us reach 500′

SEATTLE — Red Sox closer Kenley Jansen ran into Craig Kimbrel and his family in the lobby of their hotel on Monday morning. They were both in town for the All-Star Game, but that wasn’t what Jansen wanted to talk about.

“I told him, we’re not stopping here,” he said. “We’re going to 500 saves.”

Kimbrel laughed.

“Sure, let’s do it,” the 35-year-old Phillies closer said.

“Gotta stay healthy,” Jansen, also 35, responded.

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Jansen and Kimbrel, the two newest members of the 400-save club as of this year, have known each other for a long time. They met in 2014, when Jansen was pitching for the Dodgers and Kimbrel was pitching for the Braves. Kimbrel was taken aback by Jansen’s towering height.

“He’s just an enormous human being — 6-5, I think,” Kimbrel, listed at 6-foot, said of the 265-pound Jansen.

Jansen was taken by Kimbrel’s attitude on the mound.

“He looks like a mean guy when he’s pitching,” Jansen said. “But when you get to know him, he’s an awesome dude.”

A friendship developed from there. It made sense, given how much Kimbrel and Jansen had in common. They both started their careers in 2010 as closers. And 14 years later, they’re racking up saves at almost the exact same pace. Kimbrel has 408, and Jansen has 410.

“He’s low-key pushing me,” Jansen said of Kimbrel. “I see him, and what he does, and I try to do that, too.”

“Our names have been tied right beside each other since we came up to the big leagues,” Kimbrel said. “We’re right there together in saves. I try to motivate myself. I try to be the best me I can be. But if we can keep on going up, one save at a time, it should be fun for us to go back and forth over the next couple years.”

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Only eight pitchers have recorded 400 saves. Only two have recorded 500 or more: Mariano Rivera (652) and Trevor Hoffman (601). Kimbrel and Jansen know there’s no guarantee they’ll get there. But nevertheless, Jansen is keeping an eye on that goal.

“That’s my dream,” he said. “I want to see both of us reach 500 saves. I think it’s a great accomplishment. The game is hard. Sometimes we go down and sometimes we’re on top. But it would be a wonderful accomplishment for both of us.”

“What am I at right now, 408?” Kimbrel said. “Let’s worry about 409 and then go from there.”

Commissioner Rob Manfred addressed the media before the All-Star Game. Among the noteworthy things he said were that Atlanta, Baltimore, and Toronto are on the short list for the 2025 All-Star Game and that MLB is working with Dow Chemical to develop a tacky baseball to avoid more sticky substance suspensions.

Manfred said the baseball would come in a sealed foil pouch and would be used as is (no muddying of the baseball). “It would be a pure white baseball,” Manfred said.

The commissioner said he is “open-minded” to adding seconds to the pitch clock during the postseason. He will continue to talk to the players’ union about it. Manfred’s preference is to keep the pitch clock the same in the regular season and the postseason.